lord, she found me just in time
by owedbetter
Summary: MODERN AU. ONESHOT. For the Zutara Exchange 2019. "So you're starting again too." "Something like that. But no, not really—starting over doesn't mean starting again."


Prompt from nutjuitok: always a hoe for mid-to-late 20s modern (or atla au) where zuko and katara ~learn to love again~ or some cheesy nonsense

**A/N:** It's one day late and I'm so sorry about that but I hope you like this! x

* * *

"'_Cause with my mid-youth crisis all said and done  
I need to be youthfully felt, 'cause God, I've never felt young_"

— "_Jackie and Wilson_" by Andrew Hozier-Byrne

* * *

Is it possible to be born again?

To redo the entirety of your life, still knowing what you know, and do it all again? Would it be easier? Better?

However way he imagined it going, here was not where Zuko imagined himself being at 27-years-old. Starting his life again from practically nothing, with as much to his name as he had on the day of his birth—which was to say, absolutely nothing. Though, perhaps, that was not entirely true. After all, he had been a boy born into prestige, into privilege, and into power.

There was potential in him when he was first held, as there tended to be when you're a first born son, descended from a line of gods and royals. Everything about him, on the day of his birth, said that he would grow into greatness. That's what everyone expected. No one ever thought he would end up as just—

"_Hello?_" said the voice, waving a hand in front of his face, breaking him free from his thoughts. He blinked profusely until she came into focus. Short brown hair, kind but uncertain grey eyes.

"Huh?" was the most intelligible thing he could say.

Zuko straightened up and it took him a slow moment to remember where he was.

There was the scent of freshly baked bread in the air. Nearly overpowering but, oh, is there any other scent that's better to drown in? There was the hint of the flowers his uncle kept hanging up the ceiling, their dried petals and leaves and roots, his prized ingredients in his home-brewed teabags. The idle chatter of the patrons in the newly reopened Jasmine Dragon—his uncle's old tea shop, once again opened for business. He swallowed.

"I asked if you had any more of that classic ensaymada left—are you okay?" said the girl. "You seem kind of—"

"Yes, yeah. Yeah. I'm fine, just tired," came his scripted lie. The girl nodded.

"So, about that ensaymada?"

"Oh, right!" he said, eyes wide. "Hang on."

He moved to check behind him and opened the door to the stone oven. He inhaled and when the breath left his lips, it flickered into warm, burning flame that stoked the fires inside to burn a little brighter. Inside the oven, the bread was still turning from dough to sweet, browning gold.

"Next batch should be out in fifteen minutes. I just put these in."

The girl blinked—though calling her girl would have been a disservice. She was, at the very least, around his age. This woman looked at him with a wonder in her eyes that was not quite there before.

"You're a bender," she said.

"Am I? Didn't notice," he deadpanned.

"Funny," she replied, matching his acerbic wit with her levelheaded snide. "It's just—kind of weird, seeing a firebender here of all places. Aren't you guys, like, royalty or something?"

"Miss, this is a tea shop and a bakery, and no offence, I don't really owe you my life story."

"There's a bender next door too, you know."

"Okay…" he said, disinterested and exhausted.

"Aren't you curious?"

"Not particularly," he replied. "I'm just trying to get through the day and sell bread, lady."

"You new around here?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "_Please_ stop asking me questions."

"You should get out more," she pressed. Not one to give up too easily, it seemed.

"I really didn't ask."

"Maybe not, but I don't buy it—this whole asshole thing you've got going on," she told him, pointing her finger at him. He scowled even more, shadows under his bloodshot, tired gold eyes darkening.

"I'm Suki, by the way."

"Good for you, I guess," he said.

Suki smirked as she paused, looking over him once.

"Two ensaymadas for that table over there, 'kay?" she said, handing over her payment. "And one to go."

"Sure thing," he replied, giving only a single nod.

* * *

"What was that all about?" said the man who was waiting for Suki at the table. He knew that look on her face - he'd know that look anywhere and know she had an idea brewing. And Sokka was wise enough to know that she would not be stopped for anything.

"I don't know," she replied as she sat back down. She looked behind her and saw the baker attending to his wares, never looking up. There was a loneliness there that she'd only seen once before.

So, she added in a whisper, "But I've got a feeling."

* * *

The shop would be closing in just a few more minutes. Perhaps an hour longer.

It had been dark for a while now and while he could have closed up shop and it wouldn't have made a difference at all if he'd closed two hours beforehand, he couldn't. That was to say, he didn't want to. It wasn't as if he had anywhere else to go or any will at all to bring himself there.

The streets were as quiet as only urban streets could be. There was the walking of passersby along the pavement, the roll of rubber from cars rushing to get to where they needed to be. Lights in windows flickered open as inhabitants came home or lights flickered close as the inhabitants came home too and did things in the dark the way only lovers knew how to do correctly.

He knew that he should be closing up but he was in no particular rush to meet his cold bed, his unchanged sheets, his empty, little apartment above the shop he'd been entrusted with. All he did now was prepare the dough for his ware the following day. His hands, always warm by virtue of who and what he was, pressed on and rolled on in a routine that was only starting to perfume his skin and cover his fingers with a welcome roughness that only honest, laborious work could bring forth.

Zuko worked in his preferred quiet, his thoughts focused on the work at hand alone lest they would go to darker paths that often did follow him when the quiet of his lonesome grew too loud. That silence was, however, disturbed by the quiet tintinnabulation of the bell above the door. He turned his gaze toward it and found a customer, reminding him that he really should learn how to switch the sign from OPEN to CLOSED at some point.

Still getting used to it, he admonished himself.

"Excuse me?" said the customer. A young woman, right around his age, he guessed. "Are… you still open?"

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Sure," he said. He dusted his flour-coated hands on his apron.

The young woman offered a smile that reached her eyes — the bluest he had ever seen. The most striking thing about her, really. Only then did he notice the markings on her bare arms. They were bright on her skin too. Different hues of blues, mimicking ocean waves, coated her arms that transformed into howling wolves up her neck. There were patches of deep, night blue on her arms as well with bright pale ink that looked like the moon. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of intricate patterns in that blues of her arms that could only barely conceal the warmth of her brown skin underneath.

It was only right to stare, he reasoned. Art was made to be looked at and adored.

"Where's Iroh?" she asked.

"Huh?" He blinked and licked his lips as he answered, "Not here. I run this shop now."

"And _you_ are?"

"Someone who works here," he answered. "Can I help you?"

She walked over to the counter and looked through the glass for the limited selection of what it was that he had left. Which wasn't much.

"A friend of mine was over here a little while ago," she recalled. "She brought me this sweet bun that had cheese on it. It was really, really good. Ensaymada, I think?"

"I…" he started. "I don't remember _everybody_ who comes here. I'm kind of tired. And I'm fresh out of ensaymadas."

"So am I," she said. "Tired, I mean. But I'll eat anything." A shrug of her shoulders. A pause. "Recommend me something?"

"Depends on what you like," he answered. "And how hungry you are."

"I just finished a five-hour sleeve with no breaks. I'm _starving _and in no mood to wait thirty minutes for a pizza or walk anywhere farther than next door."

"Then I guess it doesn't matter what you order, does it?" he said without thinking.

Zuko spoke without spite towards her, at the very least, and she knew that. She knew the sound of a sour tone born from exhaustion. It was in the red of his tired, gold eyes.

"You're not very good at customer service, are you?" she joked, raising a brow.

"Who's to say what good customer service is supposed to even be?" he replied, his words slurring in the speed of his delivery. "I serve what you ask of me, I don't fuck it up, I go get paid, I go home. That's it." Her eyes widened. "Am I supposed to read your mind now or something? Is that part of the deal?"

"Okay," she said, her hands up and gesturing. "_Woah._"

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "It's… it's been a long day."

"I get it," she said. Her voice as gentle and calming as the open sea, tone as bright as the moon above. "Sorry if I overstepped, I guess?"

"No, it's alright," he said, brushing his hands against his apron again. "There was this guy who was over earlier and he threatened to sue me because his daughter was allergic to gluten or something? It was a whole thing." He sighed. "And I'm just really over the day now, you know? I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Well—" she started. "I… appreciate that." The young woman swallowed. "You want to talk? It's just that my shop's next door and I was really just looking for an excuse to come by and say hi. Heard there was a new baker at Iroh's and I've been told he was _cute_, so—"

She gave him a smile and spoke so swiftly and so without warning that it illicited the same response from him. Zuko scoffed and he willed for his blood and warmth to rush back down and not give away the fluster in his heart but his cheeks bloomed with pink anyway. He rolled his eyes.

"Okay," he said. "A little strong."

"Not going to apologise for that," she said, clearly pleased with herself. "I'm Katara."

"I'm Zuko," he said. "Wait—you said you own the shop next door. You're the tattoo artist?"

"I mean…" she trailed off, gesturing to the art on her arms.

"_Wow._"

Katara's smile only grew.

"So, food?" she tried. "Maybe some coffee?"

"No coffee," he said. "Uncle's a little bit of a purist but… I might change that. Who knows?" With a hand, he waved over to the stove and a small fire appeared. He refilled an old kettle with water and lifted it onto the fire. "Have a seat, anywhere you want,"

"Okay, tea then," she said, settling onto the nearest table, watching him work. "Black. The strong stuff."

"You got it."

"So Iroh's your uncle?" she asked him when he returned with the tea on a tray with two cups. A presumption she welcomed.

"He is," he answered as he poured. "Gave me a job here, pretty much gave me the shop. He lets me run the place while he has other things to do."

"Like what?"

"Family business," he answered curtly. "My dad can't disown _him_ so he's still got stuff on that side of things—"

"Your dad?"

"My dad," he said again in the same tone – with finality. A tone that said he did not want to talk about it any further. "Here." Zuko set down a small plate of buns. "Pan de coco's all we've got left that's any real good."

Katara took one, took a bite of it, and chewed tentatively.

"It could be a bit warmer," she said. The raise of her brow and her smirk told him all he needed to know. He dragged the chair in front of her and sat down.

"Your friend was the really nosy girl who came in earlier, wasn't she?"

"She means well," said Katara, playful and apologetic.

"Sure she does," he said. "Fine," he relented as he gestured for her to return the bun to the plate. In one breath, he exhaled for fire to dance around his fingertips. It surrounded the small plate of buns and his hands moved with a warrior's grace over them. Intricate, swift, and meticulous. And just as quickly as he had moved did the fire vanish in a snap. But now, the buns were lightly steaming as though only the heat had touched them and not the flames.

"Here."

Upon taking another bun, it felt as if it had returned to a tolerable warmth. The way cold pizza was after a few minutes in a microwave. She smiled in amusement.

"The only benders left are from the old royal lines," she said as she ate. "Especially the fire ones. So, why would someone like you be running a shop like this as a baker?"

"If you're trying to get dirt on the family, you won't get it from me," he said, straightening up. His jaw stiffened. "I've been the family disappointment all my life so if that's all you're here for—"

"No, Zuko," she said. With one hand, she lifted the water from the cup, made it dance for a second in the air, and let it gracefully fall back into the cup. "It's not."

"Right. You're a waterbender," he said. "Your friend mentioned that."

"Her _name_ is Suki."

"I really didn't ask," he said. "So, what do you want from me?"

"Just to talk, I guess."

"I haven't been very nice to you. I know I haven't. Why would you want to talk to me?"

"You're not as bad as you think you are, Zuko," she said. "And you're funny. I like that."

"So, you're just here to hit on me or something?" he asked, leaning forward.

"You would _be_ so lucky," she replied, mirroring his posture and smirking. "But it's not _off_ the table."

Zuko scoffed again.

"Fine," he said, leaning back. He crossed his arms over his chest and spoke. "The short version of the story is that my family owns the largest airline in the world. My father and my uncle are main, primary shareholders. My sister and I are next in line. Or, at least, I was. My father just about had about enough of me. I kept pushing for benefits for those who had probationary employment, those in rank and file, because the company kept letting them go before they _could_ get regularised and _get_ those benefits."

"Contractualisation, I get it."

"So, I pushed for that. I was going to go to the board directly, over my father's head, and—"

"Push for the benefits," she finished.

"Yeah," he said. "Well, my sister found my plans. Told our father. He said I was ungrateful, disrespectful—you know, the usual. Finally had enough of me, threw me out of the company business. My apartment building suddenly tripled prices within two days and I couldn't afford to live there anymore, my savings could only get me so far, and all my investments in stock plummeted to next to nothing in a _fortnight_."

His voice grew louder as he spoke, conviction embittering his tone. There was a hurt there that she could not name, a defeat she too had met herself before. He continued, "I'm 27 and I lost everything I had in about two weeks. My father made sure of it. And that was three weeks ago." A pause. "Uncle Iroh offered me this place. It was far enough away from my father that he wouldn't think to ruin me here too, of all places. Been here since. Trying to figure out what to do with my life after it essentially ended and now I have to start everything again with nothing."

"You don't have _nothing_."

"I know I have my uncle, but-"

"Not talking about your uncle," she said. "You have _you_. You have what you know now. You have who you _are_ now." A beat of silence between them. Outside, the street grew darker. Quieter than even before. She added, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Sorry for what?"

"I can't imagine what that must've been like."

"It is what it is, Katara," he said. "You don't have to feel sorry for me."

"I'm not sorry for you," she said. "I'm _angry_ for you. You were just trying to do the right thing but corporate people are assholes. All they care about is themselves."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Nothing quite as dramatic as what _you_ went through," she said. "But, yeah, I was a doctor. Got my MD, passed my boards, everything—all with this dream of being able to help people in need." She let out a short, bitter laugh.

"_Save the world._ But nobody ever tells you how you're supposed to pay for your bills if your patients can't pay for your care. Insurance and health providers just keep finding out new ways for doctors to tell people no, even when we don't want to. So _we _end up the bad guys," she said. "Maybe it's naive to have dreamt of otherwise but I couldn't stand it."

"What broke you out of it?"

"There was this woman who needed a procedure that would save her life. She never came back to me and I had to find out, her grandson posted her story online, and her insurance wouldn't cover the procedure because of pre-existing conditions that she had no control over. And she was dead like I told her she would be." She bit her lip as it quivered ever so slightly. She bit back a breath and swallowed as her voice grew quieter for a spell. "I could have helped save her and they wouldn't let me. So, I left. With the last of my money, I bought my place next door and I've been there ever since."

"Why tattoos?"

"I don't know, really," she said. "There's something I like about being part of something with someone forever. And sometimes, tattoos give a different kind of healing. Over some scars you'd rather forget, a reminder of something you always want to remember. And, don't tell the government, but I moonlight as a bit of a rebel doctor. Give free healing sessions if I'm able to. Pose and file it as a new tattoo."

"Give up your practise just like that?"

"Maybe not permanently and maybe I'll go back at some point but for now? It breaks my heart too much if I have to be forced to _not_ help people when I _know_ that I can."

"So you're starting again too."

"Something like that," she said. Katara furrowed her brows and shook her head. "But no, not really—starting over doesn't mean starting again." A pause. "I still know what I know now, just going about it differently. I'm always going to be trying to save the world."

She let her shoulders drop and she exhaled.

"Anyway, I think I've taken up enough of your time," she said. "Thank you for the bread and the tea. And the company. It was nice to meet you, finally."

"Any time," he said. They both started to get up, their chairs scraping against the wooden floors. "It was nice having you here."

"I have to ask," Zuko tried. "You don't… waterbend tattoos into people, do you?"

She gave a quick laugh.

"No," she said. "I use waterbending to mix my colors and I heal the tattoos immediately after to get rid of the awkward transition period, but everything else, I do what everyone else does. Why?"

"Does it hurt?"

"Not as much as you probably think it does," she replied without missing a beat. A learned response. "Thinking about booking an appointment?"

He licked his lips. "Definitely thinking about something,"

That got him a laugh from her, a brightness returning those striking blue eyes he'd first noticed.

"Little strong," she said.

"Not going to apologise for that," he echoed. "So, I guess I'll be seeing you around?"

"How does tomorrow night sound?" she asked.

For the first time since she met him, a smile bloomed on his face. A real one.

"Sounds like a good start."


End file.
